One Night, Two Lives
by ShoesXsmileS
Summary: When I was about one or two years old, my dad took me and moved to Central. He found a good job and I grew up as any normal child would...I didn't even know a person named Edward Elric existed until I was ten. One-shot. First-person: Al.


YAYYY I SUBMITTED SOMETHINGGG! Okay, about the story: At first, the whole Ed being some sort of drug-dealer-bad-kid kinda stereotype thing popped into my head the other night, but of course that would be an AU. BUT THEN, I thought of this idea, which is a lot better! :D I hope you enjoy!

XXX

Ed and I had one of _those_ fights again—the ones where I say I wish that we could see Dad again, and he gets mad and says that "bastard" doesn't deserve to be in our lives, and then we get in a huge argument. This time, it was at night, and I ended up sleeping on it, which caused me to have a dream…no, a nightmare…

XX

"Dad, do I have to visit Edward?" I whined.

"Yes, Alphonse," he responded in his even-leveled voice.

"But Edward is always such a jerk to me! Why do I have to go?"

"Because he's your brother," he stated simply, continuing to drive.

I had to do this every other month ever since a year or so, and I loathed it with every stitch of fabric of my being. I didn't understand him in the slightest. He was bitter from the first moment I met him. He may have been my brother and I loved him, but that didn't mean I had to like him.

"We're here," he said. I hated Risembool and hated going there, and not just because Ed was there. It was just so run-down that it came off as trashy to me.

We pulled up to the Rockbell's household, where Edward now resided. He stood outside with Winry, the Rockbell's daughter that was Ed's age. She waved to us while Ed folded his arms across his chest.

When we pulled up to the house, Winry greeted us. "Hi, Al! How are you? Hello, Mr. Elric." Winry was the only thing I liked about coming to Risembool.

"Winry," Dad muttered, nostalgia touching every syllable, and patted her head.

"I'm…okay," I said, eyeing Ed. He looked the other direction.

"Well, come in!" She guided us all inside.

X

When I was about one or two years old, my dad took me and moved to Central, leaving my mom and Ed in Risembool. He found a good job and I grew up as any normal child would. I never questioned what happened to Mom, and now that I look back on it, I really don't know why. Then one day, my dad was sitting in his chair. He only sat in that chair, just sitting, if he had some really big news to tell me, and I mean _really_ big. Like "I have cancer" kind of news. So he tells me a story. It's about a boy who doesn't have a dad or a brother around, and now, a mom. His name was Edward Elric. I didn't even know a person named Edward Elric existed until then. That was when my dad decided that it was the time to tell me that I had a brother, a little over a year older than me, living in _extremely_ small-town Risembool. And now Ed's new guardian, Pinako, an automail mechanic and Ed's neighbor, sent for me and Dad to come down to Risembool to visit Ed in his time of mourning over our mom that was now dead from sickness. _Nothing_ happened in Risembool. I had only ever heard of the name once or twice in passing conversation, so I never imagined I'd be going there every other month for probably the rest of my earthly life to visit my brother.

That's when they worked out this every-other-month-for-the-rest-of-our-earthly-lives thing. Even then, he was bitter. But at least there was one thing he was definitely passionate about: alchemy. I didn't know much about alchemy, but I knew he and my dad knew a _lot_. I mean, at least he was passionate about _something_.

So then, of course, I visited him every other month for about a year…until things went terribly wrong. It was a little over a week after one of our visits when Granny Pinako called for us to come down to see Ed, that it was an emergency. Didn't say what happened or why it was an emergency. But we rushed down there all the same. All I could think about on the way there was what could've happened. I thought maybe Ed was injured somehow, but _how_? But I couldn't know the full extent of it until I got there.

He tried a human transmutation on our mother and it failed. All I knew about human transmutation was that it could mean trying to bring someone back to life with alchemy and it was highly taboo. And for a very good reason.

I don't want to go to into the details. (Mainly because I don't know them all.) But Ed lost his arm and leg and the entire house was destroyed in the process. If Winry hadn't found him in the debris, he most likely would've died shortly afterwards.

We stayed for a while; a few weeks, as opposed to a normal weekend visit. I didn't know what to do. It's not like I liked Ed…we didn't have anything in common except our family and I knew he didn't like me either. But he was my brother. It made me feel like I was supposed to do something, something like a scene you see in a movie that makes you go "AWW."(1) But I didn't.

We left right before he got fitted for automail. I had never seen someone with automail in real life before, but I did know that a lot of Ishvallan veterans had them. I definitely knew I didn't want to be there for the surgery because Pinako told us it was incredibly painful and Ed would be in a lot of pain during the surgery and recovery. But, two months passed, and when we went back, Ed was just the same except with a metallic right arm and left leg.

X

"So, how've you been, Al? Anything new?" This always happened. Once we were invited in, me and Winry sat at their kitchen table and talked about the last two months while drinking green tea. And Ed always leaned against the door frame to his room, probably wondering "Why the hell don't I have anything like that?" I don't know when or why we started doing it in the first place, but if we broke the tradition now, our visits would seem completely off.

"I'm okay," I say. I usually say something close to that.

"Really? Nothing big? No new girlfriends?" She knows I've never had a girlfriend before and that I'm not looking for one, (but god, was she pretty(2)) so I don't know why she always insisted that I had a girlfriend.

"Nope, no new girlfriends." (Just asking: what's with the plural?)

"Anyone you like?"

"Nope."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Well, okay then."

"Sorry to interrupt your chit-chat, ladies," Ed retorted sarcastically, "But Al needs to get unpacked." And yeah, that always happened to.

"Yeah. I'll be back, Winry." I said, getting up. I walked into Ed's room, the room I always stayed in on these weekend visits, and began unpacking. Ed looked at me like I was a dog that had just done something _terribly _wrong. Really, what the hell was his problem?

"What are you looking at?" I said, trying to sound as polite as possible to throw him off, but it's really hard to say "what are you looking at?" politely. I tried.

"You," he replied simply.

"I didn't notice," I replied. I could never figure out _exactly _what he was mad at me about. Was it that I got to leave with Dad and have the better life? Was it that me and Dad weren't there for him in his time of need, before he did the transmutation? Or was it something else? "I'd appreciate it if you did something else instead of staring at me."

"Sorry about that, Al," he replied sarcastically, still staring. I wondered what kind of life Ed had had. I wondered if my mother was a good person. Well, I guess she must've been, for Ed to want her alive so bad. But maybe that was just because he didn't think anyone was there for him except our mom.

X

That night, me and Ed got into one of our infamous fights. I don't even remember what it was about anymore. All I could think about how I was going to deal with sleeping in the same room as him.

As we lay in our beds, across the room from each other, Ed said one thing: "I fucking hate you, Al. I never loved you or even liked you and I never will. I just fucking hate you." And that was it.

XX

I shot up out of my bed, crying as much as a suit of armor can.

"Al, what's wrong? How can I help?" It was Ed.

"Wha…? I thought you said you hated me?"

"_What?_" he replied incredulously, and even in the dark I could tell his face was marked with complete disbelief.

"It was all a dream…" I had to say, just to make sure it was true.

"Dream? Talk about a nightmare! Hey, Al, I'm always here for you, okay? How could I hate someone as awesome as you?"

"I…You know what? I don't need Dad. I'm okay, traveling right here with you."(3)

XXX

(1) This totally bugs me, considering that this takes place in the early 1900's and they didn't have movies like they do now, but I had to put this line in here anyway. Besides, I've seen people totally screw up the FMA time frame way more than just that.

(2) I'm not even an AlWin fangirl, so I don't know why I keep insisting Al likes Winry. :/ First _I Love Her More_, now this.

(3) It kind of implied that I don't like Hohenheim here, though that's not true in the slightest. I 3 Hohenheim, I really do.

XXX

Just a few A/N's: So, basically, Ed never had the courage to become a state alchemist, because Al wasn't there to give him the courage. Also a result of never having a loving brother around, he became extremely bitter, selfish, and asocial. Also, it says that Hohenheim told Al about Ed and their mom a bit after she died. I don't know about the manga, since I'm not to that part yet, but I know that in the anime he doesn't know she died until he comes back to Risembool after being gone for all that time.

About the transmutation: I had a very hard time deciding how the whole equivalent exchange deal was going to work with Al not being there. I'm sure having the house destroyed and half of Ed's body taken away wouldn't have happened, more like _killed_ Ed, but I obviously needed him alive for this story. Also, I know that in the real story Ed sacrificed his arm for Al and that obviously didn't happen here. Oh well. You know what? I can do what I want, because it's _fanfiction_.

Also, I didn't know how I was going to end this at first. ^^; Then I'm just like, "I need something that'll make Al wake up, crying as if he could." That was the best I could come up with. I hope its okay. ^^;

Anyway, I obviously didn't explain everything, so if you have any questions, just ask in a review!


End file.
